


Safety

by uhpockuhlipz



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Sleepovers, soft idiots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 16:16:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13955298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uhpockuhlipz/pseuds/uhpockuhlipz
Summary: Kara and Lena discover that neither of them have ever had a slumber party before and decide to remedy the situation.





	Safety

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dankaroo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dankaroo/gifts).



> Happy birthday to my bud Nicole. Sorry this isn’t great, but it’s the most I’ve written in 84 years so I hope you at least pretend to enjoy lmao

It’s a strange thing, being friends with Kara Danvers. Being friends with anyone, really. Lena isn’t used to it and sometimes it makes her feel stilted and stiff when they interact, like she’s playing a part in someone else’s story instead of just living her life. A part where she doesn’t know the lines, it’s all improv, and she’s fumbling her way through in the dark.

  
Kara says she’s a good friend and Lena wants to believe it, she really does. Because oh, Kara is such a good friend to her and all she wants to do is pay that back in kind. She wants to be the person Kara can turn to, the one she can tell things.

  
(The one who doesn’t confuse _friendship_ with _something more,_ but that’s a completely separate issue.)

  
But as much as she hopes she is, Lena... she doesn’t really believe it. Because having friends is stupidly hard and even though most would say that it isn’t that difficult to just be there for someone else, most people are not Lena Luthor. Most people grow up having friends, experiencing things like sleepovers and birthday parties, vacations over spring break. Lena never had any of that.

  
For her it was family first (family only). She went from their home in Metropolis to boarding school to some summer home or another, and in each place she had a single person room. One in which she was not allowed guests because “ _You have to focus on your academics, Lena_ ” and “ _School girl connections are trivial, Lena. You’ll meet the people you need to know through us_.” And since Lena had been younger than her classmates by a handful of years, it had never really been a problem in any case.

  
“ _You should know by now that Luthors don’t have friends, Lena. We have minions._ ” Hadn’t that been Lex’s parting shot after she’d asked after Clark, followed by a bitter laugh and a dismissive hand wave?

  
People like Kara don’t have that problem. She’s so likable, has so many friends that it’s sometimes (read: constantly) hard to believe that she considers Lena to be her _best_ friend. Lena, when she has James and Winn and Alex and even Sam now. Lena, when she has literally anyone who isn’t Lena. And Lena’s grateful for that, she is, but she’s also constantly aware that the other shoe could drop at any time. Anything could be the one thing where Kara realizes that she isn’t worth the effort she puts into her.

  
For now, though, Lena lets herself enjoy it. She basks in the warm glow that is Kara Danvers’ presence, almost constantly surprised that she still randomly appears in her office with lunch or calls her for brunch on Sunday mornings. But she does, she always does, and the smile she gives Lena nearly every time never fails to take her breath away.

  
It’s Friday morning and she’s sitting across from it now — that smile, wide and brilliant and genuine and somehow for Lena — trying to act like it isn’t the best thing she’s ever seen. Like Kara isn’t the best thing in her life, the one person who makes her feel more Lena than Luthor. Kara is talking to her about a rally she attended as Supergirl and also wrote an article for as Kara and Lena is laughing quietly as she describes how she’d gone crazy running around and putting in appearances so Snapper wouldn’t get suspicious and “by the time I got home, I just face planted in bed, still in my suit and everything,” and Lena aches with how much she adores this woman.

  
“I swear it was like one of those dumb body swap movies you watch at like, sleepovers and stuff? Except I was in both bodies for like six hours and it was insane.”

  
Lena’s eyebrow lifts slightly. “I didn’t realize body swap movies were a big thing at sleepovers,” she says, her voice light, careful. She doesn’t expect the way Kara winces, the way her expression goes slightly sheepish and her face falls. It sparks panic in her chest and she’s quick to add, “Not that I would know. I never did things like slumber parties growing up.”  
That seems to snag Kara’s interest. She looks back at Lena with obvious surprise, and then something like sadness that makes her want to squirm. She isn’t used to people feeling sad for her. Pity, sure, she’d received that a time or two. But people feeling sad for her, because they care about her and her feelings and the cracks and scars that cover her heart? That’s still a new one.

  
“I never had one either,” she says with a half shrug, one shoulder lifting and falling. “Unless you count sharing a room with Alex.” Kara laughs a little. “And you shouldn’t because sharing with her was a pain in the butt a majority of the time.” 

This time it’s Lena’s turn to be surprised. “You’re joking,” she says, laughing a little, but Kara only shakes her head. “Really? I thought you’d be the patron saint of sleepovers. They seem very... you.”

  
“Nope.” Kara nudges her glasses back up her nose. “Those kinds of things aren’t really things outside of family on Krypton. And when I got to Earth, I was kind of like... the freaky adopted sister, you know? I did weird things like stare at birds for too long or cover my ears like everything was too loud, even when the noise level was pretty moderate by human standards. Most people avoided me. And when I finally did make a friend, it was a guy and that was a definite no-go.” Something sad moves over her face at that and Lena remembers how that friend — Kara’s first friend, Kara’s first kiss — had been murdered. She reaches out without thinking and covers her hand, grips it when Kara flips it over so they are palm to palm.

  
“Maybe we should have one,” Lena jokes, trying to ward off the nervous energy that skirts down her spine at the feeling of their hands locking together. “See what we missed out on.”

  
“Really?” Kara lights up at the idea and no, not really, Lena thinks. She’d been joking, trying to lighten the moment so that Kara would laugh and wave off the suggestion. But Kara is looking at her so hopefully that she only boosts her smile and nods.

  
“Of course.”

  
And when Kara begins to list the sort of things that are slumber musts, she can’t help but be happy that the little joke slipped out.

  
(Even if it’s not exactly the way she’d pictured sleeping with Kara.)

 

 

//

 

 

They watch a bad horror movie in their pajamas, complete with popcorn and movie theater candy, both of which Kara devours and Lena barely picks at. It’s B horror and obviously old, but Lena finds herself enjoying it. Of course, that’s more due to Kara narrating the whole thing in a cheesy voice than the movie itself (“And here we see the blonde victim running back up the stairs in the house of horrors instead of outside to where there’s probably other people and phones and maybe a cop or two, but whatever”).

(“Maybe she’s hoping supergirl will rescue her,” Lena teases.)

  
(Maybe she will,” Kara shoots back, turning her head to smile at Lena and heart totally doesn’t jump up into her throat.)

  
After that, they invade Kara’s kitchen and build an ice cream sundae that’s so big Lena is sure there’s no way even Kara could finish it, but of course she’s proven wrong.

  
Kara says rather seriously that girls always gossip at sleepovers, but because they don’t really have many mutual people to gossip about, they end up making them up. Kara weaves a wild story about the head cheerleader shaving her head and joining a commune somewhere in Nebraska. Lena adds that she heard it happened because her varsity football captain boyfriend was found boinking his halfback in the locker room.

  
(Kara makes a face at that and Lena bursts out laughing. Kara throws a piece of popcorn at her from the mostly empty bowl on the table and Lena laughs harder until Kara’s laughing too.)

  
Lena is almost relaxed by the time they get to fingernail painting — up until Kara takes her hand.

  
Somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that Kara would have to hold her hand in order to paint her nails and suddenly her heart is in her throat again, beating there and blocking her airway so that she can’t speak or laugh or do anything but stare at the top of Kara’s head while she bends over her hand, forehead creased in concentration, lips caught between her teeth. She paints in slow, delicate strokes and Lena finds herself wondering how much effort it takes for her to do things like this, to focus on not exerting too much pressure, if there are just constant calculations floating through her brain or if she can just do it instinctively by now.

  
She’s still staring, her mind starting to wander to things involving pressure from those hands that isn’t strictly friendly, when Kara looks up abruptly. She’s still holding Lena’s hands and her glasses are missing, discarded nearly as soon as they’d come into the apartment. The shock of that blue goes straight through Lena’s system and she can’t look away.

  
“Are you okay?” Kara asks quietly. Her thumb skims Lena’s wrist, a slow glide over the skin it had been resting against. “Your pulse is racing.”

  
Lena nods, but says nothing. Her eyes are still locked on Kara’s, she can’t find it in herself to look away, and Kara is making no moves to return to the task at hand. _Here comes the other shoe_ , she thinks, because she can’t look away and of course Kara can feel her pulse, hear her heart, and it’s so obvious what’s happening. Kara is staring back at her and she knows, she has to know, and any moment she’s going to try and let her down easy.

  
And then suddenly she’s leaning forward and even Lena can’t mistake the intent in her eyes, the way her eyes flicker to Lena’s lips, the way her own part in anticipation of that first meeting, and Lena isn’t breathing, she’s not, she’s all but tingling with anticipation of her own and—

  
“Shit!” Lena jolts back from the shock of something cold against her hand, looks down to see a smear of pink polish across the back of it.

  
“Crap,” Kara mutters. “Sorry. I forgot I was holding it.” She pops the brush back into the bottle and sets it far back on the coffee, grabs Lena’s hand again and swipes the smear away with the pad of her thumb.

  
Lena snorts out a laugh that she covers with one hand, shakes her head, looks up again when Kara lifts her hand high enough to blow on her wet nails. “Not too hard,” she warns, trying to keep things light. As if nothing had happened, as if they hadn’t been two seconds away from kissing only moments before. Maybe she’d imagined it, after all. Maybe it was a daydream, or Lena’s own wishful thinking. “You might freeze my fingers off.”

  
“I won’t.” Kara’s eyes flicker up and meet hers again, send a jolt through Lena’s system. Her breath stops again, her heart picks up, and Kara’s lips curve. “I’ll keep you safe, Lena. I always do.”

  
Lena catches her lip between her teeth, nods once. Her voice is quiet when she says, “I know.”

  
Their hands lower and again they just look at one another, a million words passing without a single one being spoken. When Kara slides closer, Lena only watches her, not moving, following her progress with her eyes. Kara’s hand lifts, hesitates before sliding around the back of Lena’s neck.

  
“Okay?”

  
Lena nods once, wide-eyed, hardly daring to believe that this is her reality.

 

Kara’s lips are soft. Not hesitant, but careful, as if she isn’t quite sure this is really happening either. And then Lena sighs against her, into her, and Kara is wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her closer, the pressure increasing until the kiss is deep and long and slow. It’s an almost dreamy kiss that melts into another, and another, until it seems they’ve been kissing forever in the glow of the Netflix menu screen, Their fingers pressing into necks and shoulders and hair and waists until they’re tumbling backwards on top of Kara’s area rug.

  
“You’re so beautiful,” Kara whispers, her fingers sliding almost reverently through Lena’s hair. When Lena shakes her head, she gives a gentle tug until their eyes meet again and repeats, “You are, Lena. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”  
Lena gives her a skeptical look. “You don’t have to say that just because we’re kissing.”

  
“I’m saying it because it’s true,” Kara corrects, and though her voice is mild, Lena can feel the gentle correction of it, the same Kara always gives whenever Lena bashes herself. It makes her smile, just a little. “And I’m kissing you because you have a heart that matches.”

  
“Kara...”

  
“You’re beautiful, Lena Luthor. Inside and out. Every part of you.” She tugs again, urges Lena to lean down and press their lips together.

  
“That’s kind of cheesy,” Lena says, but there’s so much emotion in her chest that the words come out kind of watery, her voice slightly higher in pitch as she tries to swallow it back down. Kara smiles like she knows it, but she doesn’t call her out on it. She only cups her cheek, swipes her thumb over the high line of it, and pecks her lips again.

  
“But you like it.”

  
Lena smiles, just a little.

  
“Yeah, I do.”

 

 

//

 

 

They don’t really get to the sleeping part of the sleepover until very late (or very early).

  
They end up talking through the night, their bodies curled close, one or the other closing the distance every few minutes to start the kisses all over again.

  
When Lena finally falls asleep, it’s with Kara’s arms curled around her and a feeling of safety she thinks she might finally learn to trust.


End file.
